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Switching tactics: Abortion used to be “difficult” but now it isn’t

In a recent interview with the Seattle Times, Planned Parenthood president and CEO Cecile Richards complained about what she perceived as a “profound” “lack of empathy” shown by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to women who choose abortion. Richards then went on to explain that she aborted her fourth child, and it “wasn’t a difficult decision” for her or her husband.

Wait a minute – is this a contradiction? Either abortion is difficult and deserves empathy… or it isn’t, and it doesn’t. You can’t have it both ways, Ms. Richards. If it isn’t a difficult decision, then why complain about a perceived lack of empathy toward women who find themselves facing that decision?

Like all good pro-abortion feminists, Richards claims abortion was just no big deal for her. Her claim falls into line with the likes of writer Amanda Marcotte, whose over-the-top diatribes cause much of the population to wonder if her writings are satire or serious, and who, among other things, has compared abortion to having a cavity removed. Her claim also falls into line with Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL, who says she aborted her baby because she just couldn’t have been a mom and successful at the same time (how’s that feminism working out for you?). And they’re not alone. Many women claim that aborting their children didn’t bother them in the slightest – and this seems to be exactly what today’s extreme pro-abortion feminists are hoping for.

Live Action News writer Cassy Fiano has pointed out that in the past, even Planned Parenthood and Hillary Clinton have adhered to the idea that abortion is a difficult decision for women. Clinton called it not only difficult, but “soul-searching.” But now, despite the fact that the public believes that women do (and should) wrestle with questions of abortion’s morality, the most vocal abortion proponents no longer wish to go along with the impression that abortion is a “difficult decision.”

After years of insisting that choosing to abort one’s child is a gut-wrenching moral decision, pro-abortion feminists now want to switch up the script. Why? And why now?

Is it because they never really believed abortion was all that gut-wrenching in the first place – they just knew they had to sell it that way to gain public acceptance? (After all, their go-to argument is still the hard case scenarios… rape, incest, life of the mother. But in reality, they push for zero restrictions on abortion, regardless of circumstance or gestational age.) Is their anger about the wave of pro-life laws finally causing the mask of reasonability to fall away?

87 percent of the American public currently believes that abortion is a “difficult decision,” and feels it should be restricted after the first trimester. 59 percent believe abortion does women more harm than good. The numbers aren’t trending favorably toward the pro-abortion feminist view. So now pro-abortion feminists have chosen to pretend that abortion isn’t really all that serious – no, no… it’s just a quick, simple procedure to fix a problem. We didn’t want a baby, so, we didn’t have one! Voila! No agonizing. No fuss. No difficulty.

In reality, pro-abortion feminists like Cecile Richards – and the abortion giant she leads – do women a disservice by presenting the abortion of children as an event of little consequence. They have sought to delegitimize the painful abortion experiences of millions of women who feel they were lied to or pressured into what ended up being a life-altering choice. Increased risk of suicide, post-traumatic stress reactions from abortion, physical risks, even death – the abortion industry and its pro-abortion feminist cohorts pretend these things don’t exist as a result of abortion. The right to abortion is more important to them than any pain individual women might experience as a result of the choice to abort. The only stories of individual pain you’ll hear from the pro-abortion side are from women who either can’t access abortion or who die from illegal abortion. Legal abortion deaths and injuries? Crickets.

And let’s not forget that the preborn child is rarely considered at all.

Planned Parenthood and its president, Cecile Richards, aren’t about helping women. They’re about perpetuating the lie that abortion is easy and doesn’t harm anyone. They’ve had to change their tune because, despite the fact that the public bought into the “abortion is a difficult decision” rhetoric they were selling, it still hasn’t made abortion palatable to the majority of people.

There’s still just no way to make abortion a beautiful thing – because it isn’t. Abortion means death for a human being, and most people – no matter how they try to frame it with euphemisms – know this.